Tag Archives: Russia

Roundup: What the budget leaks reveal

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We are on or about day forty-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like Russian units have pulled out now from around Kyiv and Chernihiv, back into Russia or Belarus in order to resupply and reorganise, and the expectation is that they will move toward the Donbas region, which Russia says it wants to “liberate.” That has Ukrainian authorities encouraging people in the region to evacuate before they come under fire. On a related note, the mayor of Mariupol says that at least 5000 civilians have been killed in his city including 210 children, and that 90 percent of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed, because that’s what Russia does.

Closer to home, it is the great pre-budget tradition of leaks from the PMO in order to set the stage for the main event. So far, we have leaks on:

  • Defence spending—as much as $8 billion will apparently be allocated (though who knows if they will have the capability to actually spend it, as they can’t with their current allocation)
  • The promised surtax on big banks and insurance companies who profited during the pandemic, which they hope will raise $1.2 billion per year for the next three years.
  • They plan to allocate $10 billion to housing over five years to implement the various measures from their platform, including $4 billion to help municipalities update their zoning and permitting to hopefully unclog that particular bottleneck.
  • There are hints coming that it may “overperform” in its fiscal anchors because of the roaring economy boosting revenues.

And of course, the usual wailing and rending of clothes by a subset of economists who think that enhancing the social safety net is expansionary fiscal policy that will force the Bank of Canada to fend for itself in tackling inflation.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1511835606132830211

Meanwhile, here are Chrystia Freeland’s budget shoes. This was the first time federally that the event had taken place in a women’s shoe store (as she had them delivered to her home last year because of the pandemic). And thankfully, she didn’t try something gimmicky.

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Roundup: The competing pre-budget narratives

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We are now on or about day forty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the talk of the day was president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to the UN Security Council, where he recounted (with video) the extent of Russia’s atrocities in towns like Bucha, and demanded war crimes tribunals, and more importantly, massive reform of the Security Council in order to strip Russia of its veto powers. That, of course, is far easier said than done, particularly because the major powers won’t play if they don’t get additional powers, and Russia is a nuclear power. So we’ll see what happens next (which may be nothing).

Closer to home, we are now one day away from the budget, so expect a lot of narratives about the expectations, whether the government should spend more or cut back, though I find there to be some problems with some of the assumptions therein. For example, when it comes to spending, I’m not sure why things like more money for housing or the investment in dental care would be classified the same as subsidies to industries or so on. Is an expansion of the social safety net the same as expansionary fiscal policy that would ordinarily be used to create jobs or growth (which is less relevant right now given that we are sitting around full employment)? I’m not sure they’re the same, but they seem to be treated as much in some of the pieces circulating in the Discourse right now.

At the same time, we should also be realistic about what the budget can and cannot do, such as combatting inflation. In spite of facile narratives that government spending is driving inflation, that’s not showing up anywhere in the data—what is driving it has a lot more to do with the world price of oil (which is directly impacted by the sanction on Russia as a result of their invasion of Ukraine), and the fact that there were droughts in food-producing regions including Canada, thus limiting food supplies and driving up costs, and that the invasion is going to make it worse as Ukraine was considered the breadbasket of Europe (and elsewhere), and if they can get crops planted this year, there are problems with the Russians having targeted ports. Add to that the rising cost of housing (which is largely a problem of supply driving by craven municipal governments who can’t authorize zoning changes or increase density because they’re afraid of NIMBYs and/or are in the pockets of developers), and you wind up with a whole lot of things that the federal budget can’t really do much about. Not that there won’t be an effort to put all of the weight on the federal government regardless, because that’s how we roll, apparently.

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Roundup: Pronouncements that should be disqualifying

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We are now on or about day forty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the word of the day is “war crimes.” In particular, American president Joe Biden declared that Putin needs to be tried for war crimes…which is odd, because the Americans don’t believe in the International Criminal Court and haven’t signed onto its treaties for fear that they will be hauled before it at some point. So, I’m not sure who Biden thinks will be trying Putin for said war crimes, unless he plans to bring American into the ICC system at long last (though I am dubious that will ever happen). In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Bucha and witnessed the atrocities there for himself, calling Russia’s actions a “genocide” (though there is some debate about the applicability of the term given that it is a crime of specific intent).

Closer to home, there has been some attention being paid to the fact that Pierre Poilievre is trying to promote crypto and Bitcoin, and it’s just so ridiculous how this isn’t automatically being seen as disqualifying. (And it’s not just Poilievre—Michelle Rempel Garner has a private members’ bill in the queue about promoting crypto and blockchain in Canada). Never mind that everything Poilievre is saying is bunk, and his pronouncements about the Central Bank are utterly bonkers. The truth of the matter is that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that they are nothing more than elaborate Ponzi schemes, and if he can’t see that, then we have a serious problem on our hands.

Meanwhile, here’s the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, eviscerating Poilievre and his nonsense thinking:

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QP: Sticking by childish epithets about the NDP

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While neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, Candice Bergen was back after a week of isolating while her husband had COVID. She led off, script on her mini-lectern, and she raised the of inflation, and worried that the government would spend “outrageously” rather than producing a “responsible” budget on Thursday. Randy Boissonnault, appearing by video, stated that the Conservatives have ignored the facts of the economic recovery from the pandemic. Bergen raised Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, and John Manley to denounce the supposed “tax-and-spend” budget, because apparently it’s 1995 and will always be 1995. Boissonnault reminded Bergen that she campaigned on a higher deficit, and that their positions are all over the map, and called on the Conservatives to support Bill C-8 on the fiscal update measures. Bergen demanded a GST holiday on fuel and to scrap the price on carbon as “real measures” to give Canadians “a break,” and offered some childish epithets about the NDP. Boissonnault recited measures the government has taken for affordability, including their new plan on low-cost internet for low-income families. Luc Berthold took over in French, and repeated the claim that there were no fiscally-responsible Liberals left, and wondered what good the Liberal Party was if it sacrificed its values for the NDP agenda. Boisonnault repeated his good-news talking point about economic statistics, but in French. Berthold lamented inflation, and worried that the government would unveil new permanent spending in the budget, which apparently would make Chrétien and Martin embarrassed (though I’m not quite sure about that). Boissonnault thanked Berthold for saying that Liberals are fiscally responsible, and praised measures that helped children and seniors out of poverty.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she wanted unconditional health transfers and demanded a public summit to hear from premiers and health care providers. Jean-Yves Duclos praised providers, and noted that tens of thousands of lives, and tens of billions of dollars were saved thanks to their collaborations and efforts. Normandin repeated her demand for a public summit, and Duclos repeated his response. 

Alexandre Boulerice led for the NDP by video, and he cited the three-year warning of the IPCC on the pace of emissions cuts, demanding and end to fossil fuel subsidies, to which Steven Guilbeault recited that they are ahead of the rest of the G7 on ending subsidies and praised the investments in their emissions reduction plan. Laurel Collins repeated the question in English, to which Guilbeault cited environmental groups who praised the emissions reduction plan. 

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Roundup: Not the first real test

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We’re around day forty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces have retaken more territory, but that has come with some awful discoveries. In Bucha, outside of Kyiv, they have found mass graves and the bodies of civilians who were simply executed by Russian soldiers. At least 410 bodies have been found, traumatising witnesses, as they must now work with investigators who will put together the case for war crimes tribunals. In the meantime, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian obsession with capturing Mariupol has given them needed time in other parts of the country, where forces have had time to build up defences, and now reclaim areas where Russians have been though. Nevertheless, the human toll is staggering, and the atrocities are only now being uncovered, which may further spur more aid from Western countries given how graphic the scale of these atrocities are.

Closer to home, it’s budget week, so expect a veritable slough of thinkpieces about how this week is the “first big test” of the NDP-Liberal supply and confidence agreement, and its sub-variations of environmental policy, or defence spending. But that’s actually a little absurd, because this budget was always going to pass (it’s been too close to an election, and nobody is in shape to let the government fall), and frankly, the budget was already baked in and probably on its way to the printers when the confidence agreement was signed, so it’s not like Chrystia Freeland was going back to the drawing board to redraft the whole thing in light of the agreement. That was never a serious question (and frankly, most of the agreement is just about doing things the Liberals had already promised anyway).

The real test will be next year’s budget, when everyone has had a year to simmer, the Conservatives will have a new leader, and the NDP will have received the pushback from their own base. We’ll be out of the too-close-to-the-last-election safe zone, and the NDP will have a decision to make whether they think this still serves their purposes (because this agreement is only good as long as the either the NDP or the Liberals think they can still get something out of it). This budget was always a gimme—it’s the next one that things will start to get interesting.

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Roundup: A Ukrainian delegation in Ottawa

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We are now on or about day thirty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has accused Ukraine of crossing the border with two helicopter gunships to attack a fuel depot in Belgorod—something that the Ukrainians deny, which raises the notion that this may be some kind of false-flag operation by Russia to justify further action against Ukraine. After all, CSE has outlined some of the disinformation storylines that Russia has been pushing around their invasion of Ukraine, including the fabrication that Ukrainians are harvesting organs from soldiers, which is blatantly untrue—but Russia has been bad enough at their information operations that it may not be too surprising if they staged this explosion in Belgorod. Also pressing is the statement from president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russian forces have been leaving mines in the area outside of Kyiv, including around homes and corpses.

https://twitter.com/ArmUkraineNow/status/1510096650823421958

Elsewhere, Ukraine has paused its efforts to recruit fighters internationally, given that there are some problems with the legal status of some of them with their home countries, but also the fact that it actually doesn’t make sense to put these people on the front lines with little-to-no training. That said, they stated that they still need help with non-combat roles, such as transporting food, ammunition, fuel, and moving wounded soldiers from the battlefields, so we’ll see if there is still the same enthusiasm for those roles. As for refugees coming to Canada, there are concerns that there are now months-long waits for biometrics appointments at embassies and consulates in surrounding countries, but the government has been putting more resources in those offices, and have stated that it would actually take longer to make the IT changes necessary for visa-free travel than this system which adapts existing travel streams to the country. I guess we’ll see which winds up being correct.

Meanwhile, five Ukrainian parliamentarians have been in Ottawa for the past two days, meeting with Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, Anita Anand, and other parliamentarians. Part of what they have asked for the government are a specific shopping list of weapons and lethal aid, as well as financial aid. It sounds like there haven’t been any announcements out of these meetings, other than an assurance to watch next week’s budget, so that’s one more thing to stay tuned for on Thursday.

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Roundup: No more human resources to spare

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I believe we are now in day thirty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are believed to be leaving the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after their soldiers soaked up “significant doses” of radiation while digging trenches in the area. (You think?) There were also plans for another humanitarian corridor to evacuate people from Mariupol, but it doesn’t appear to have been honoured.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had sacked two high-ranking members of the security services, citing that they were traitors. As for the Russians, the head of CGHQ in the UK says that they have intelligence showing that some Russian soldiers in Ukraine have refused to carry out orders, sabotaged their equipment, and in one case, accidentally shot down one of their own aircraft. There are also reports that Russian troops have resorted to eating abandoned pet dogs because they have run out of rations in Ukraine, which is pretty awful all around.

Closer to home, the Senate was debating their orders to extend hybrid sittings yesterday, as the sixth wave has been picking up steam, and one point of contention are the resources available to senators to hold sittings and committee meetings. In particular, they have a Memorandum of Understanding with the House of Commons about sharing common resources, and that MOU gives the Commons priority when it comes to resources available. This has hobbled the Senate, but even if they did try to come up with some way to add resources, the biggest and most constrained resource of them all is the finite number of simultaneous interpreters available, and we are already in a problem where as a nation, we’re not graduating enough of them to replace the attrition of those retiring, or choosing not to renew their contracts because of the worries that those same hybrid sittings are giving them permanent hearing loss because of the problems associated with the platform and the inconsistent audio equipment used by the Commons. These hybrid sittings exacerbated an already brewing problem of not enough new interpreters coming into the field, and Parliament is going to have a very big problem if they can’t find a way to incentivise more people to go into the field. We rely on simultaneous interpretation to make the place function, and if the number of interpreters falls precipitously low—because MPs and senators insisted on carrying on hybrid sittings in spite of their human cost—then we’re going to be in very big trouble indeed.

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Roundup: Insufficient consequences for an abuse of power

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We are now on or about day thirty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the promise that they were pulling back from Kyiv and other places to give peace talks room to breathe were, well, not true. But nobody actually believed Russia in the first place, so nobody is exactly shocked here. Maclean’s features photos from Ukraine from Canadian photographer Philip Cheung on the ground there.

Closer to home, former Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges, and admitted to all the various things that he flatly denied previously. But the galling part in all of this is that got off on a conditional sentence that included community service, rather than face a criminal record. And even more appalling was the fact that his lawyer was trying to argue that Vance was going to suffer enough because his reputation had been stained enough that he wasn’t going to be able to cash in on the promises of future defence spending, whether that’s with some kind of government relations gig, or consultancy.

The bigger picture in all of this is not just that there is a highly sexualized culture in the military that this is a mere hint of, it’s that there is an abuse of power crisis within the military that the lack of meaningful consequences here simply emboldens. This obstruction of justice charge, and the admission of it all, is a demonstration of the abuse of power that Vance was trying to wield, and got caught doing. That he gets to avoid the serious consequences of this abuse, and that the notion that he can’t cash in is punishment enough, is a sign that this is a rot that runs deep and we need to be serious about this problem and acknowledging that it exists before we can get to work on tackling it as part of the culture change that the Canadian Forces desperately needs to undergo.

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Roundup: A strange definition of dictatorship

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We’re now on or about day thirty-five of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces appeared to be pulling back from Kyiv, allegedly to give more space to peace talks, not that anyone believes Russia (nor should they). It could mark a more concentrated effort by Russian forces to “liberate Donbas,” which some say could be a face-saving measure for Putin. As part of the peace talks, Ukraine floated the idea of making Canada a security guarantor to the proposal of neutrality, and not hosting any military troops or bases from other alliances such as NATO, so that’s something. In the meantime, here is a look at why Russia is taking such heavy casualties (and why that is unlikely to deter them).

Closer to home, we have a major problem with disinformation that is being pushed by MPs, particularly Conservative ones. This week, MPs Brad Redekopp and Rachael Thomas declared that Justin Trudeau is a “dictator,” and that they were being absolutely serious about it. This, like Andrew Scheer declaring that Trudeau is the world’s greatest threat to liberty, is absolutely gobsmacking, but part of an increasing pattern of rhetoric that is dangerous to our democracy because it is so corrosive to both accepting election results, and faith in government writ-large, regardless of party.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1508917840333709317

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1508917842607054853

This metastasises into the full-blown endorsement of conspiracy theories, and it’s a problem that is currently plaguing MPs, as that (fairly shite) Senate bill on developing a framework for a guaranteed basic liveable income has senators’ mailboxes and social media being flooded with both conspiracy theories and disinformation about this bill, but also panicked seniors who are being told that they will be denied their pensions and benefits if they are insufficiently vaccinated or the likes. It’s a real problem, and too many MPs (and a handful of senators) have been feeding into this disinformation environment for the sake of scoring a few points, and they really need to stop. No good comes of this, and they’re causing longer-term damage that will be incredibly hard to overcome.

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Roundup: Buying the F-35s after all

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We are now somewhere around day thirty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and there are claims that Ukrainian-forces have retaken a Kyiv suburb as well as another city further east. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing for another round of peace talks with the Russians and sounds like he is willing to declare the country neutral and give up any hope of future NATO membership in exchange for peace and future security guarantees (NATO membership wouldn’t come so long as there are territorial disputes, meaning so long as Russia occupies Crimea and the Donbas regions, it would be impossible). Zelenskyy also briefed Justin Trudeau on the talks yesterday, because they are keeping each other in the loop.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1508520970516058121

Closer to home, the announcement was made that the government will finally be settling on purchasing F-35 fighter jets to replace our aging CF-18 fleet, leading to questions about whether the last seven years were wasted when the previous Conservative sole-sourced contract was cancelled in favour of a new competition. And if you read the 2015 election platform promise about cancelling the purchase, it was because it was sole-sourced for a high price, given that the goal of a competition is to get a better price, so we’ll see if that pans out. It’s still not a done deal—they now get to negotiate directly with Lockheed Martin to get the best deal possible—but we have to remember something of what happened with the previous announcement, particularly that it was done poorly, and the Auditor General called out how opaque it was, and that’s kind of a big deal.

We should also remember that the planes are a much more mature platform now, with many of their flaws having been worked out (though I haven’t heard yet whether the ejection seats will still kill you if you’re below a certain height and weight, because that was a real problem). It does sound increasingly like the biggest consideration was the interoperability with NATO and NORAD fighters, meaning we had to be fairly seamless with the Americans, rather than just the promise of regional job creation programmes (though Canada being a participant in the joint strike fighter programme the whole time means we’ve already had some of those industrial benefits throughout). We’ll have to see what more the government can extract from Lockheed Martin in promises as those negotiations carry on throughout the year to see whether that seven-year delay was worth the wait.

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